News, Opinion, and Media Analysis on Cincinnati, Ohio and the World From a Unique Perspective

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Roxanne Kills The Streetcars

According to the Enquirer, Roxanne Qualls will introduce a motion--which is already publicly backed by a majority of Council--to change the streetcar proposal so that rather than building the downtown-OTR loop, the streetcar would immediately include an uptown line. Under the current proposal (the one that Qualls is supplanting), the "loop" would be built first, with the uptown line added later.

Even the smaller, less ambitious looop initially proposed involves a huge outlay of public funds. But the Councilmembers supporting it had seemed to work through a way to finance it. I'm not sure there's any real hope that Council would pass a streetcar proposal that includes the increased pricetag that comes along with the Uptown link; it would be difficult to imagine finding the funding to do it immediately, rather than in the two phases initially proposed.

I'm not sure if Qualls is intentionally making sure streetcars don't come to Cincinnati, but that's almost certain to be the result of her actions.